


coming round, falling down

by brookethenerd



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:00:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21928597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: When the reader tangles with a Demogorgon in the forest, Steve is there to save the day (aka hurt/comfort and protective Steve)
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Reader
Kudos: 64





	coming round, falling down

When your cat didn’t return from its nightly romp through the forest, it was apparent to you the poor thing had probably strayed into a bobcat’s range. Your family, however, felt differently. _Lost_ \- not _dead_ \- was the household consensus, and _lost_ meant going out to _find_. Which was how you ended up stomping through the forest in the cold when you could have been bundled beneath a blanket on the couch. 

In addition to the cold, the chances you’d find your cat - as opposed to its executioner - were slim. The weather made it harder and harder to be sad about the loss of a fat - albeit old and senile - family member. But there you were anyways, a dying flashlight in one hand and catnip in the other, traipsing through the forest like an idiot for a dead cat. It couldn’t get any worse than that. 

Which, as everyone knows, are famous last words. 

A twig snapped to your right, and the hair rose on the back of your neck. The next snap was closer, the leaves shifting and crumbling as something too dark for you to see moved among them. You lifted your flashlight toward the noise only to find it had, ever so conveniently, chosen to crap out at that moment. 

A clicking noise turned your stomach to stone, fear clawing its way up your chest. That was all you needed to turn and run; cat be damned if it wasn’t already.

You found a dark silhouette - tall, thin, inhuman - standing between two trees, blocking your path home, and cursed. That, most certainly, was not a bobcat. 

You bolted the opposite direction, and a roar sounded behind you, its enormity shaking the trees - and you. You didn’t dare glance over your shoulder as you ran, but the pounding footsteps drew closer with every beat of your frantic heart. Even with the extra attention paid to the forest ahead of you, the darkness made it impossible to see more than a few feet, and you didn’t see the root jutting out until you tripped over it. Though you tried to catch yourself, you slammed down hard against your palms and knees, but the pain was of little concern. Whatever was chasing you was getting closer and closer, and you’d lost precious seconds in the fall. 

You pushed yourself unsteadily to your feet and scrambled forward, only to be yanked back. The fabric of your shirt ripped apart, and you lost your balance, hitting the dirt once again. You rolled onto your back, panicked brain trying to come up with a solution and coming up blank. 

The creature lunged back into sight, claws scraping against your ankle and tearing the skin like paper. Fire erupted along your leg, and you screamed, only instincts pulling you back and away. It moved closer again, and you squeezed your eyes shut, waiting for a bite that never came. 

Instead, the sound of squelching flesh and a grunt, another hit, and finally, a thump. Your eyes flew open and landed first on the beast that had chased you - dead, bloody, and as you’d predicted, not human. Somehow, though, the alien-looking creature wasn’t as big a surprise as the person that saved you. 

Steve Harrington, wielding a wooden bat with nails protruding from its tip, raking back his hair and breathing heavily. He swung the bat once more for good measure, nudging it with a foot to make sure it was indeed dead. 

“And screw _you_ ,” he said to the dead creature. He quickly turned his attention to you, triumphant dissolving into concern as his gaze fell to your bloody palms, stained knees, and lacerated ankle. The adrenaline that had kept you moving dissipated, pain taking its place and darkening the edges of your vision. 

Steve knelt beside you, brows furrowed. 

“Shit, the bastard got you. Can you stand?” He asked. You fought to keep your eyes open, trying to push yourself up and failing. 

“Totally,” you said, and proceeded to pass out. 

* * *

You woke in a strange room in an unfamiliar bed, but that was nowhere near as troubling as the throbbing pain in your ankle. Your knees ached as well, and your hands wrapped in white gauze, but the ankle was the most jarring. You gritted your teeth and pushed yourself up against the headboard. 

“Hey. You’re alright. Try not to move too fast.” Steve moved into your line of sight, tossing a wad of bloody bandages into the bin beside his desk. 

“What am I…” Memories of the creature that had clawed at you flashed behind your eyes, and you stiffened, though you were clearly out of harm’s way.

“It’s dead,” Steve said, noticing your discomfort, “the thing’s dead. You’re in my house. You took a pretty decent beating.”

“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” you moaned, staring down at your bandaged hands. 

“That’d be the demo dog. Nasty sons of bitches.”

“Demodog?”

Steve pursed his lips. “Think of it as a really, really pissed off Rottweiler. With, like, sharp teeth.”

“I thought it was a bobcat,” you said, leaning back against the pillows propped behind you. 

“I’d take a bobcat over a Demodog anyway.” 

“Thank you,” you said. “For killing it.” 

He shrugged off the gratitude, coming to sit on the edge of the bed, carefully tugging the blanket off your feet. He peeled back the bandage around your ankle, and you winced at the flush of pain, making him grit his teeth.

“Sorry.” He readjusted the bandage and replaced the blankets. 

“How did I get here?”

“I carried you.”

Heat coursed through you, burning your cheeks, and you shifted. You didn’t know Steve Harrington all that well - only through reputation, which so far, appeared to be a fabricated one - and he’d saved you anyway. 

“Thanks for that, too, then.”

“It’s no biggie.”

“It kinda was.” You arched a brow. “You’ve seen these things before?”

He averted his gaze, fingers grazing over the knuckles on his other hand, the ghost of an injury. “More times than I’d like, yeah.” 

“Hence the bat, I’m guessing.” You nodded to the weapon leaning against the desk, some of the nails still glimmering with blood. Not your blood, though, thanks to Steve. 

Steve smiled. “Hence the bat.”

“I didn’t know you were a monster hunter,” you said. He scoffed. 

“Barely.”

“You’re okay? You’re not hurt?” You asked, scanning him up and down. His brows furrowed like he was unused to the attention. You wondered how long it had been since someone last asked him how he was; so long, it seemed, he didn’t remember how to answer the question. 

“No,” he said, “just you. I cleaned out your ankle, you’ll just want to stay off of it for a day or two. Your knees and hands are pretty scraped up, too.” He nodded at your wrapped hands. 

“How’d you learn to stitch people up?” 

He gestured to his nose - a little crooked from a past break - and to a faint scar on his cheek that you hadn’t noticed until he called attention to it. 

“Like I said, I’ve run into those things before.” And he’d stitched himself up, it seemed. 

“A _seasoned_ monster hunter, then.” 

He grinned. You smiled back, shifting your weight and bringing a spark of pain. You sucked in a breath, and Steve went still, brows knitting together. He stood and moved to his desk, an open first aid kit spread across it, and dumped a few pills into his hand, bringing them and a cup of water back to you. He handed you the pills, and you swallowed them, setting the cup aside. 

“I don’t think-if my parents see me like this-”

“You can stay here,” Steve said. “You can stay as long as you have to.”

“What about your parents?”

“Even when they’re here, they’re not here,” he said. A surge of sorrow pushed through you, and you felt immensely sad for this boy who was supposed to have a perfect life. Big house, nice car, plenty of friends. 

Instead, he was wickedly adept with a weapon, skilled in first aid, and kind, kind above all else. Not like you’d thought, not like anyone thought. 

“Thank you,” you said, “for all of this.” 

He shrugged, but you didn’t let him roll this one off. 

“You kind of suck at taking compliments, you know.”

“I do not.”

“You do too.”

He rolled his eyes and fell back against the bed, a few inches from your covered legs, face turned your way. 

“Fine. Shower me in praise. Go ahead, I’m ready.” 

You laughed, some of the pain waning. 

“You’re nice.”

“ _Nice_? Seriously?”

“And…helpful.”

“Helpful?”

“Sarcastic, almost to the point of irritating.”

“You kind of suck at giving compliments.” 

“I said _almost_.”

“ _That_ makes it better.”

You kicked him lightly with your uninjured foot, and he rolled onto his stomach, pushing up onto his elbows. His hair flopped over his forehead, messy and in need of brushing but still irritatingly gorgeous. 

“And brave. Really brave.”

“Getting better,” he said, lips quirking up. 

“Now, you’re fishing.”

“Hey, complimenting me was _your_ idea.”

“Was it?”

“I think I liked you better when you were unconscious,” he said. You grinned. “Though dragging you back in the dark wasn’t that great.”

“Tread carefully,” you warned, to which he smirked and pushed himself up, swinging off the bed. He moved to his closet and tugged the doors open, pulling out a few folded blankets. He went to work making a pallet on the floor, and you tossed him a pillow wordlessly. He flicked the lamp on, and the overhead lights off before returning to settle on his makeshift bed, turning to face you. You laid down, unable to turn on your side, but shifting to the edge of the bed and turning your head so you could see him. 

“Goodnight,” he said. “Try not to piss off any more monsters tonight.” 

If you’d had an extra pillow to chuck at him, you would have. Instead, you rolled your eyes and tugged the blankets up to your chest. There’d be more time to give him shit in the morning. 

“Goodnight, Steve.” 


End file.
